Good Enough
The magic trick here is how these movies keep getting made and keep making cash.
Wicked: For Good
Director: Jon M Chu • Writers: Winnie Holzman, Dana Fox, based on the play by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman
Starring: Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jonathan Bailey, Ethan Slater, Michelle Yeoh
USA • 2hrs 18mins
Opens Hong Kong November 20 • I
Grade: B
Wicked: For Good, the movie, has the same problems as Wicked the stage musical’s second act did. It’s hard to come back from an Act I capper like “Defying Gravity.” And for that matter those problems exist in Les Miserables (go ahead, top “One Day More”), West Side Story (Act II starts with “I Feel Pretty”), The Lion King (“Hakuna Matata”) and the gawdawful The Phantom of the Opera (“All I Ask of You”). Point is, most times Act II is a drop off a very high cliff – and I say that as a huge fan of musicals. After director Jon M Chu masterfully layed the groundwork for the Oz of Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman’s all-ages spin on the much, much darker novel (by Gregory Maguire) the writing was on the wall. No way was Chu going to be able to better himself, especially with lesser material to work with. All that said, Wicked: For Good is still a lot of fun what with Jonathan Bailey eye-fucking eveyone, Cynthia Erivo wearing the coolest oversized knit sloppy sweater of all time and Michelle Yeoh swapping out excellent villainy for singing. It’s the right choice.
Second act problems are so rife in musicals they’re practically a convention at this point, and so For Good lacks the fist-pumping, sing-along songs, comedy and character definition of Wicked, despite the heavier drama. After a time jump to start the story it raises stakes really fast, only to drop them just as quickly and make the back and forth and double crosses enough to give you whiplash; bring one of those airline neck pillows. That said, by shooting the films together Chu has ace production designer Nathan Crowley (Wonka, First Man, The Greatest Showman, Christopher Nolan’s go-to) and DOP Alice Brooks (Tick, Tick ... Boom!, In the Heights) to lean on, and naturally they make Oz and For Good into a vivid and fantastical two-hour getaway, even with its ongoing condemnation of unbridled power through fear-mongering.
Let them fight
And here’s another thing. That lesser material could have been beefed up considerably given the benefit of hindsight, but unfortunately co-writer Dana Fox (The Lost City) couldn’t rise above Holzman’s fealty to her own play. You’re a fan or you’re not; either way it’s all fine. For Good picks up several years after Elphaba (Erivo) took off after learning the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) was a fraud to hide in the woods and become a guerilla freedom fighter. She’s looking out for the animals that have been stripped of their voices and persecuted for who they are (ahem), and just wants her fellow Ozians to see the truth. Meanwhile in the Emerald City, Glinda (Ariana Grande) takes centre stage in the narrative, having transformed into Glinda The Good, a propaganda tool used by the Wizard and Madame Morrible (Yeoh), Shiz U’s old Dean of Sorcery and now a major power broker. Elsewhere, super-stud Fiyero (Bailey) is Captain of the Wizard’s Guard and Glinda’s fiancée, and Elphaba’s sister Nessarose (Marissa Bode) is the Governor of Munchkinland who turns into a tyrant when her Munchkin assistant and wouldbe boyfriend Boq (Ethan Slater) tries to leave. When the bad guys conspire to capture and preferably destroy Elphaba and try luring her into a trap, she finally makes an appearance in Emerald City when a house falls on her sister. You know the one. The shoes are gone, there’s a hit squad from Kansas after her, no one believes her… Fuck it, she thinks, and embraces her role as the Wicked Witch of the West.
Wicked: For Good stumbles along its yellow brick road on more than a few occasions, chiefly with that aforementioned whiplashing among the characters, a little too much of a Disney vibe with all the damned woodland creatures popping their heads up to see what’s what, and if you thought the peripheral characters in part one were marginalised, Glinda’s entourage of Pfannee (Bowen Yang) and ShenShen (Bronwyn James) are essentially invisible this time. And a pair of fairly unremarkable new songs – “No Place Like Home” and “The Girl in the Bubble” – certainly won’t make anyone forget “No Good Deed”, when Elphaba embraces her wickedness, and “For Good”, in which Erivo and Grande engage in a sing-off of the highest order (it’s fabulous).
But there is plenty of, erm, good here, led by those visuals, by Yeoh’s disdain towards Glinda, particularly when she watches Glinda delight at her new bubble ride; Grande brings the comic timing again. There’s a wonderfully loopy bit of Goldblumism in the throne room, a fistfight between Elphaba and Glinda adds a much needed dose of levity, and the film seems to gleefully take the piss out of that bitch Dorothy (Bethany Weaver) and I’m here for it. At the risk of any SPOILERS the notion of Elphaba’s exaggerated nails coming into contact with The Scarecrow is a bottomless pit of untapped comedy. Anyone who knows the play knows why. But above all Wicked: For Good keeps its focus on the core story about the two friends who fall out, fall back in, betray and forgive each other, and its squishy heart is what makes us brush off its minor infractions. That and watching Erivo belt out “No Good Deed.” That will never be dull.